


Always

by anythingbutgrief



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, fluffy fluffy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutgrief/pseuds/anythingbutgrief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian and Mickey fight like the stubborn little fluffy shits they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

"Do you want to come to dinner at Fiona’s tomorrow night?" Ian asked around a mouth full of cereal, flipping through the cartoon section of the newspaper. 

Mickey fidgeted, thumbing his empty cup for a few seconds. “Uh……I can’t. I gotta—I’m gonna be gone the next couple days. Gonna help my brothers with something.” 

Ian stopped chewing. “Delivering drugs?” 

"Yeah." 

"Over state lines, right?" Ian’s voice had gone hard, sarcastic, and already Mickey knew this was going to be as annoying as he expected. "Were you just going to disappear tomorrow without saying anything to me? Why’d you wait till now?" 

"Uh, maybe because I knew you were going to be a little bitch about it." 

Ian got up, walking over to Mickey to dump his bowl into the sink. “Real nice. So I should just save my breath about how stupid and dangerous it is.”

Mickey blew out his breath and met Ian’s eyes, already hardened in anger. “Look, my brothers are going to be there. Nothing’s going to happen.”

"Nothing’s going to happen except all you have to do is get pulled over once and then you go to prison, where—" Ian cut himself off, visibly frustrated, but Mickey knew the rest of the sentence without hearing it.  _Where your dad is._

Mickey reached a hand up to Ian’s shoulder, trying to ground him, to calm him, but Ian lurched out of his touch, backing away, and Mickey felt like he was burned, his jaw setting. “It’s like two days. I’ve done this fucking………twenty times before. I know what I’m doing.”  
  
Ian opened his mouth to retort, but Mickey cut in, “ _Nothing_  is going to happen. Calm down.” 

Ian scoffed and walked away, grabbing his coat from his chair and pulling it on as he marched out of the house. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be real fucking calm holding my breath for two days waiting for news of whether I’ll ever see you again.” 

***

Mickey could hear that Ian was awake before him the next morning, just based on the pattern of his breath. Ian had stayed late at school the night before, and Mickey had been halfway through boiling water for pasta when he got Ian’s text that he was eating at Fiona’s, so Mickey had eaten a microwavable dinner by himself instead and gone to bed early in a grumpy haze, ranting in his head until he exhausted himself to the point of not waking up whenever Ian had climbed over him at some point during the night. 

Mickey rolled out of the bed now, got ready in five minutes, and when he came back he could tell that Ian was still awake, but he kept still with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his chest. Mickey sat next to him, looking at Ian’s face, his lips frowning and his forehead wrinkled, wanting to press his mouth against each spot until every bit of worry was wiped away.

"It’s gonna be okay. It will," Mickey promised in a whisper, brushing a hand over Ian’s hair. But Ian tensed under his touch, again, and Mickey pulled his hand away, feeling his heart rate pick up when Ian rolled onto his side, turning his back to Mickey. "Fine. Fuck off, then," Mickey muttered, turning to leave.

***

Ian’s anger lasted as long as it took Mickey to leave the house, the sound of the front door shutting behind him knocking the guilt into Ian like a baseball to the stomach. Ian wasn’t sure why he felt bad, at all, really. He wasn’t wrong, right? Mickey was being stupid as hell. Sure, they needed money. They always needed money. But what were they going to do for money if Mickey went away, or if Mickey got hurt? And it’s not like Ian wasn’t always telling Mickey, “You could go to school like me, you know. You could get your GED. You could get a job that wasn’t so risky or so hard.” Stupid fucking Mickey, stupid Mickey who was only stupid because he chose to think of himself that way, stupid Mickey who was capable of so much more than he ever allowed himself to think,  _stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid._

But the more Ian thought about it, the more it felt like he was trying to convince himself, and the sour feeling in his stomach prevailed. Because  _so what_  if Ian was right? What if something went wrong? What if Mickey went back inside? Then the last memory he would have of Ian would be his cold silence, moving away from Mickey’s touch like he didn’t want it. Ian didn’t feel like screaming anymore. Instead he curled further into the pillow, resisting the urge to grab his phone and text Mickey, “Come back. Please. Just for five minutes,” so he could hug Mickey one more time, just in case.  _No, don’t text him. Just let him be._

Ian lasted almost the full two days without breaking that promise. He read his books. He talked to Lip. He took his medication. He ate with Fiona and Debbie and Carl and Liam again. He did his homework. He washed Mickey’s shirts. He cleaned their room. He lasted until the quiet dark had descended on the second night without Mickey, worry prickling the hairs on the back of his neck to full attention. Mickey’s brothers, the ones that still talked to him, anyway, were generally fine. They didn’t talk about “it” and they didn’t want to hear about “it,” which still pissed Ian off, but they wouldn’t hurt Mickey, so Ian could live with it, if it meant Mickey got to have some pieces of his imperfect family still in his life. But would they call Ian, if something happened? Would they call Mandy? How long was too long to wait? 

Ian caved, huffing out a sigh at his own weakness before grabbing his phone to type out a text to Mickey. “Ok?”

The reply took less than a minute. “Yeah.” 

Ian felt a spasm of relief, but when it passed he had to resist the urge to throw the phone across the room. “Yeah?” That’s it? That’s all? So Mickey was still pissed. Whatever. Ian could play that game, too. 

_No, you can’t,_  his mind whispered the second he turned his face into Mickey’s side of the bed, inhaling deep, smelling his hair. Ian wanted to run his fingers through it right now, wanted to press his lips to his head and whisper to him that they were fine, that everything’s fine.  _Come home, Mickey_ , Ian thought to himself, over and over and over.  _Come home. Come home. Come home._

_***_

"Yeah," Mickey typed as he chewed the bottom of his lip to ribbons, feeling cold and alone in his motel room bed even though Iggy was cackling at some stupid television show with the volume blared up as high as it could go. 

Mickey stared at his phone, hoping that it would light up again with Ian’s name, but it never came. For a brief moment, looking down at his screen, Mickey was tempted to go into his contacts and change Ian’s name to “dickhead” or “asshole” or “fucker.” But instead he went through his pictures, flipping through photo after photo of Ian’s face. It was all Ian’s face, because Mickey didn’t like getting his picture taken. Ian would say, “Aw, come on, just one. You don’t even have to look at it. I’ll just use it for facebook,” and Mickey would always reliably reply, “Fuck off” before snapping pictures of Ian by himself. He ran his thumb over Ian’s face now, zooming in to get a closer look for the ones that were farther away. His stupid boyfriend.  _Stupid stupid stupid_ , worrying and fussing and nagging and generally just being a pain in the ass, like Mickey didn’t live with the perpetual sword of the police hanging over his head all the time always, like Mickey didn’t sit up nights sometimes wondering what would happen when he went away, if Ian would visit him, if Ian would find somebody else, if Ian would be alone, if Ian’s family would step in and make sure he was okay, check on him when he needed to be checked on, if Ian would be okay. Mainly, if Ian would be okay. 

And the thought made Mickey’s blood run cold, that Ian was sitting at home thinking the same things, if Ian was waiting for the day that he’d be alone, the day that nobody would be there to reassure him that he was, in fact, still there, if Ian was worrying about holding it together if the worst happened. But, no, he knew that wasn’t true. Ian was at home worrying about  _Mickey_ , and somehow that worse than anything else. Because Mickey had never had that before, even though he’d had it for years now, with Ian, every time still felt like the first time. Every “I give a shit what happens to you” felt like a wound being torn through him. And so far Mickey wasn’t any good at patching it up himself. 

But there was always tomorrow.

***

Ian’s hand was being held. That was the first thing Ian was aware of, that his left hand was being held and rubbed and gently squeezed between two others. He tried to open his eyes, but he was still sensitive to the light, and instead when he moved his head he knocked his face into something that was definitely  _not_  a pillow. 

"Easy, easy," came a familiar voice between chuckles. Ian finally blinked his eyes to full openness to see Mickey sitting next to him, a smile on his face. "I brought breakfast," Mickey continued, rubbing his fingers over Ian’s knuckles. 

Ian glanced at the paper box he’d headbutted a second earlier and recognized the brand of doughnuts, feeling suddenly entirely awake and alert at the prospect of food. He sat up, allowing Mickey to keep his hand and pushing open the box with his other to reveal eight doughnuts covered in pink and red sprinkles, just like the ones he used to split with Mickey at the Kash & Grab years ago. He stared down at them for a second, feeling a lump the size of a satellite develop in his throat, and looked up at Mickey, who was staring at him with wide eyes and his mouth dropped open in concern because Ian had gone and gotten teary over some fucking doughnuts. 

"Hey, hey," Mickey murmured, bringing one hand up to cradle Ian’s cheek. "What’s—"

Ian cut him off with his lips. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he whispered between pecks. “I’m sorry, I was stupid, it was stupid. I shouldn’t have let you leave like that.” 

Mickey rubbed slow, insistent circles around his jaw, his tongue soft and sweet against his lips. “I came back, didn’t I? Like always,” he said lowly, smiling down at Ian’s hand clutching the edge of the doughnut box like it was a piece of treasure.

Ian split the first doughnut in half, bringing a chunk up to Mickey’s lips. Mickey huffed out a laugh and murmured, “You’re so dumb,” but he opened up and let Ian inside.

Like always. 


End file.
